1) Get oil - near the backend of the town, theres the old store - get in there and find the oil. 2) Get the dwarf - also near the back end of town - he's behind a locked door, convince him to join.3) Get the elf - he's at the inn4) Get the innkeeper to help you out as well5) Get the smith to help out6) Get the old woman priest to bless the knights

all of those things should considerably get the ods in your favor - also remember, you can heal the NPCS!

1) Get oil - near the backend of the town, theres the old store - get in there and find the oil. 2) Get the dwarf - also near the back end of town - he's behind a locked door, convince him to join.3) Get the elf - he's at the inn4) Get the innkeeper to help you out as well5) Get the smith to help out6) Get the old woman priest to bless the knights

all of those things should considerably get the ods in your favor - also remember, you can heal the NPCS!

Spoiler for Hiden:

I got most of those, I blew my chance with the old hag already, I figured it was nonsense, plus the knight part is easy so whatever. i missed the dwarf. god damn hairy midgets

I may just have to put it on easy. I'm going to try shale and whiner for having 2 tanks. also, is duel wielding really broken? i kept reading about how daggers suck or something. what's up with that?

Thankfully, it's only daggers that suck right now, and they were never intended to be main weapons, so always equip swords and such in your main hand, and then only use daggers in your off hand until you get the ability to equip full swords/axes in your off hand.

Un-modded, daggers are fine when you take the Lethality talent (opens up at Level that allows you to replace your STR modifier with your CUN modifier. And any rogue worth his salt is going to take that talent anyway.

Otherwise if you are playing on the PC you can get a hotfix to resolve the dexterity issue.

Leliana is dual-wielding daggers in my game, and she easily does the most damage of all my characters. There are some pretty damn good daggers in the game.

i have Leliana using Olaf's Prized Cheese Knife from the Stone Prisoner quest and it's a pretty impressive dagger for so early in the game...good damage rating, nice attack bonus, and two rune slots. i currently have runes on it to add a couple types of elemental damage. combine those stats with backstab, and she's dealing more damage with each hit than anyone else in my party right now.

I still plan to get this soon. Was wondering does anyone think I'd be gimping myself too bad just getting the vanilla version and not buying any DLC?

wouldn't be gimping yourself at all...there's still a ton of gaming and great story without any DLC. the current DLC just adds another character for your party and a single quest line, neither of which are necessary by any means.

I still plan to get this soon. Was wondering does anyone think I'd be gimping myself too bad just getting the vanilla version and not buying any DLC?

wouldn't be gimping yourself at all...there's still a ton of gaming and great story without any DLC. the current DLC just adds another character for your party and a single quest line, neither of which are necessary by any means.

No, the DLC adds an awesome character to your party (his lines at time are absolute riots) and a single quest line.

Actually...hold on. Doesn't the DLC for Shale come free of charge with any brand new purchase of Dragon Age? Isn't Warden's Keep (which to be frank, offers little short of some nice armor and items to purchase) the one you have to purchase no matter which version (vanilla or CE) you buy (short of the digital download versions)?

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Leliana is dual-wielding daggers in my game, and she easily does the most damage of all my characters. There are some pretty damn good daggers in the game.

i have Leliana using Olaf's Prized Cheese Knife from the Stone Prisoner quest and it's a pretty impressive dagger for so early in the game...good damage rating, nice attack bonus, and two rune slots. i currently have runes on it to add a couple types of elemental damage. combine those stats with backstab, and she's dealing more damage with each hit than anyone else in my party right now.

that had 2 rune slots? aw crap, I think I sold it.

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I still plan to get this soon. Was wondering does anyone think I'd be gimping myself too bad just getting the vanilla version and not buying any DLC?

wouldn't be gimping yourself at all...there's still a ton of gaming and great story without any DLC. the current DLC just adds another character for your party and a single quest line, neither of which are necessary by any means.

No, the DLC adds an awesome character to your party (his lines at time are absolute riots) and a single quest line.

Actually...hold on. Doesn't the DLC for Shale come free of charge with any brand new purchase of Dragon Age? Isn't Warden's Keep (which to be frank, offers little short of some nice armor and items to purchase) the one you have to purchase no matter which version (vanilla or CE) you buy (short of the digital download versions)?

Shale is indeed free with all versions of the game. Amazingly he integrates fully with the main storyline and even has some of the best character quests and interactions in the game.

Leliana is dual-wielding daggers in my game, and she easily does the most damage of all my characters. There are some pretty damn good daggers in the game.

i have Leliana using Olaf's Prized Cheese Knife from the Stone Prisoner quest and it's a pretty impressive dagger for so early in the game...good damage rating, nice attack bonus, and two rune slots. i currently have runes on it to add a couple types of elemental damage. combine those stats with backstab, and she's dealing more damage with each hit than anyone else in my party right now.

that had 2 rune slots? aw crap, I think I sold it.

yes it does...pretty awesome weapon for something that you can obtain so early in the game

I second that the Shale story line is great, and one of the best companion quests. Shale's strength is not just in tanking, but as an amazingly flexible all purpose companion, based on the situation. Not too far into the game Shale can already have two lines maxed out, and by mid point, can become your most flexible character.

I think Allistar makes a better tank later in the game due to better armor and defense, and him being fully ranked up in weapon and shield and templar abilities. Holy Smite is nasty against mages. But Shale is more flexible, and can fill a tank, melee dps, ranged dps, and support role at a moments notice.

On the inspirpation for Shale (major companion spoiler):

Spoiler for Hiden:

There are so many things in DA that seem to be directly influenced from Warhammer 40k. The golems, and Shale, are like dreadnoughts...which was a very cool reveal. Calindon (sp?) was just like a 40k dreadnought.

I finally finished my first playthrough of the game, and was very pleased with the final outcome. The concluding sequences were every bit as epic and well-paced as I might have hoped, though there were a couple of side diversion portions which I thought could have used editing or omission. All in all an incredible game, and even with some bugs and minor nits/issues, no doubt one of the best CRPGs of all time.

Something I do wonder about, is with the multiple possible endings (with what I presume are big possible differences), how they will (or won't) manage to make sequel storylines. Will they choose a particular branch to spawn stories from? Even if they jump a sequel years in the future, they kind of have to acknowledge the events of this game, don't they?

Spoiler for Hiden:

I'm talking mainly about who survives, who becomes king, etc. which would be pretty big events in the timeline. Some of the other stuff I guess they could gloss over like Andraste's ashes and the Anvil, and still be consistent for a seuqel. Also it seems like one of the best storylines would feature Morrigan's baby, but of course many characters (females) wouldn't even see this plot point, right?

And for the gay-friendly population out there, here's how I interpreted the complete conclusion of my story:

Spoiler for Hiden:

After getting captured by Calidain(?), Alistair and I awake in the prison pretty much naked (I have screenies to prove it!) One thing leads to another, and let's just say there are no more virgins in the plotline. He *really* approved of the "gift" I gave him. After we escape, of course I help him and let him kill Logain so he becomes king. He whines about it but whatever, that's just Alistair. I end up doing that slut Claudia Black to save myself but Alistair forgives me since he's pretty much my bitch at this point. After destroying the darkspawn, I stay at his side as his advisor to help him rule the kingdom, and we live happily ever after!

I finished this tonight at just under 53 hours, 75% sidequests (according to the achievment) and yet only 48% of DA "completed" on the Hero screen. Huh?

Anyway, I thought it was superb. Definitely my favorite of the Bioware fantasy RPGs that I have finished. Thank god for Easy mode and being able to (mostly) disable friendly fire. Really liked the infusion of some MMO mechanics into their real time tactical combat. That definitely removed some of the tedium I have had with their older games with the constant need to rest, etc.

My main gripes were with the limited inventory (just annoying) and with the need to restart every hour or two to keep the load times under control. Really wish I had a beefier PC as I ended up dialing graphics to low and textures to medium to make this the most playable it could be. The game just flat out doesn't look that great on those settings.

I'll probably play through the other origin stories some time soon, but for now I am ready for Assassins Creed 2!!

I finished this tonight at just under 53 hours, 75% sidequests (according to the achievment) and yet only 48% of DA "completed" on the Hero screen. Huh?

you get dinged quite a bit on your completion percentage because you haven't played all the different origin stories, regardless of how many quests you've completed or areas you've visited. the quest completion stats and percentage of areas explored are a better indicator of how much of the game you've really experienced.

Really wish I had a beefier PC as I ended up dialing graphics to low and textures to medium to make this the most playable it could be. The game just flat out doesn't look that great on those settings.

That's okay it doesn't look that great maxed out either. Not that I'm not enjoying the game-I am. It just lloks kind of vanilla and washed out to me. And I played Risen right before it which I thought looked fantastic. Different type of game so not fair to compare-it's just the last one I played.

My Dwarf Noble told Morrigan to "Fuck off" since I was in a relationship with Leiliana, but I think the real ending will follow the Morrigan ending. It will be kind of hard to pick up from my save since my character died. Although, if Bioware wanted that to be the real ending they could have just has Morrigan shape shift into Leiliana...

this game is good. I noticed my play time, 31 hours. wtf, I can't believe i'm 31 hours in. It feels like I have just gotten started. I only have 1 of the 3 guys for the rally thing. Only had this game for a week too. Scary lol

I finally got back to playing this last night and immediately found my combat skills out of practice. had 2 random encounters and both times my tank (sten) went down, leaving 2 rogues and a mage to clean up things. it's kinda sad when you think about it, big ol' Sten lying on the ground while Leilana, Wynne and my female Noble saves his ass.

One of the encounters was a battle with a bunch of bear traps lying around. only one got triggered during the fight (don't ask me how the others were missed, I didn't even notice them until after the fight) and there were about a dozen left, which gave me 30 XP each for disarming them. It was a nice bonus since only one of the Hurloks dropped anything.

I saved the game at the beginning of Redcliffe, but I think I may go back to the Elf segment to finish that up since I started that portion and went to get Wynne before finishing.

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I dropped Sten from my party almost immediately because he couldn't hold up in a fight. Did much better with Dog in my party until I was able to grab Shale.

I thought about trying Shale, but I have a feeling he's not going to fit my playstyle this run through (trying to be good, relatively). I just found some templar armor for Alistair, so I may call him back up from the minors.

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I dropped Sten from my party almost immediately because he couldn't hold up in a fight. Did much better with Dog in my party until I was able to grab Shale.

I thought about trying Shale, but I have a feeling he's not going to fit my playstyle this run through (trying to be good, relatively). I just found some templar armor for Alistair, so I may call him back up from the minors.

Shale is pretty laid back. I've had him in my party for most of the game and he very rarely disapproves of my generally positive actions. Morrigan is far more problematic from a moral perspective.

I dropped Sten from my party almost immediately because he couldn't hold up in a fight. Did much better with Dog in my party until I was able to grab Shale.

I thought about trying Shale, but I have a feeling he's not going to fit my playstyle this run through (trying to be good, relatively). I just found some templar armor for Alistair, so I may call him back up from the minors.

Shale is pretty laid back. I've had him in my party for most of the game and he very rarely disapproves of my generally positive actions. Morrigan is far more problematic from a moral perspective.

Morrigan disapproved of basically every decision I made but I kept her around all the way to the end (well almost). With a few gifts any NPC seems happy to stick around.

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It was this moment that took the movie from being a little ho-hum to “holy shit, did that shark just eat a plane!?”

Morrigan disapproved of basically every decision I made but I kept her around all the way to the end (well almost). With a few gifts any NPC seems happy to stick around.

Yeah, I'm actually kind of disapponted in that aspect of the game. Pre-release there was a lot of ballyhoo over how companions would leave your party if they weren't happy with your decisions and that you couldn't possibly please everyone, etc but the reality is that it has been absolutely trivial to keep everyone's approval sky high. Morrigan disapproves of almost every decision I make yet her overall approval is somewhere in the 60s.

I think the fact that you only have your standing with party members affected when they are physically with you plays a big role in that shortcoming. I'm fairly certain I could seriously piss off Leilana big time; I may make it one of my goals for my evil play through.

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I think the fact that you only have your standing with party members affected when they are physically with you plays a big role in that shortcoming. I'm fairly certain I could seriously piss off Leilana big time; I may make it one of my goals for my evil play through.

Nah, it really doesn't matter. I've had Morrigan in my party the entire game. She disagrees with every single thing I do but her approval is still high. The game is balanced in favor of gifts- if you give the right gifts they will more than overcome any negatives from decisions that you make. To really piss someone off you would not only need to have them in your party continuously but also never give them a gift.

There are certainly decisions you can make that will cause that party member (if they are present at the time) to leave your party. I've had a couple of those situations so far, though I usually reload because I'm a wuss.